Hong Kong's Sights and Sounds with Carolyn and Two New Aunties

As some of you know, I will be traveling most of my trip over the next few months with my friend Carolyn, who I know from Seattle. As a little background, Carolyn is reality TV star, which is the reason she decided to come travel with me. She had the amazing opportunity to be on an Amazing Race type contest called Focus Rally America where she and her partner traveled the country over six weeks completing challenges (look for it on Hulu!). Being the star that she is, her team won and with her cash prize, she decided to take a break from work to travel the world.

I met up with Carolyn and her family in Hong Kong, where her aunt was kind enough to let me stay with them (she even did my laundry! I know, I'm spoiled). But the spoilage didn't stop there. Her other aunt came down from China for the weekend to hang out and to tour us around Hong Kong. They took us to all of the really cool sights including Victoria Peak, Repulse Bay, Stanley, and Golden Beach.

 Carolyn at the waterfront by the convention center.

Victoria Peak. 

Repulse Bay. 

At the harbor by Tsim Sha Tsui.

On top of that, being the motherly, asian women that they are, they fed us non-stop (I don't think I was hungry for my entire four days there). We ate really good dim sum every morning, and snacked throughout the day as we roamed around (being as gracious as they were, they wouldn't let me pay for anything, but luckily my P90X paid off and I was able to wrestle the bill away from them for one meal).

At dim sum with Carolyn's aunts, cousin, and college friend Joe. 

The other great thing about hanging out with the aunts is that it forced me to practice my mandarin. Carolyn's aunts don't speak any english, so I told them that I spoke mandarin (using "spoke" as loosely as possible). The rest of my time there was spent trying to pick out words or phrases that I recognized and filling in the gaps with my imagination, most likey answering questions that they weren't asking. I could see an exchange going like this:

Auntie: (Pointing to egg tarts) Did you know that egg tarts in Canton are flakier and more delicious than in the US?
Me: (Proudly) Yes, these are egg tarts.

I actually got better as the weekend went on, and it got me a little more motivated to practice at home. So to all my mandaring speaking friends, I challenge you to challenge me to speak more. If nothing else, I can confirm that what you're pointing to are indeed egg tarts.

Spending time with Carolyn and her aunts showed me again how blessed I am. The aunts took care of me as if I was one of their own, making sure I was always fed, comfortable, and with clean underwear. I hope I can show them the same type of hospitality they showed me if they ever visit Seattle. I'll just need to learn how to wash delicates.

Ode to Oscar

Let's get right to it - my Uncle Oscar is the best.

I've only know Uncle Oscar less than two years (and seen him only ten days within that span), but each time I go to Hong Kong, he treats me like a king and never (ever!) accepts thanks, as if what he's doing is expected, even commonplace (which it most definitely is not).

Let me give you a quick background on Uncle Oscar. First of all, he's not really my uncle.  My dad used to take care of him a bit when he went to SPU (along with my god brother, Bernard), so he's more like a god brother to me than uncle. Secondly, and more interestingly, he LOVES lizards! He owns a lizard shop in Mong Kok called Urban Jungle - one of the first lizard shops opened in that area.

What I love about Uncle Oscar's story is that he fought through a lot of obstacles and doubts to follow his passion, even though it wasn't the safe, practical, or comfortable choice. As the saying goes, if it's not difficult, it's probably not worth it. You can probably imagine, his parents weren't too thrilled with his decision to get into the lizard business. On top of that, it cost a lot of money going from country to country looking for new species, and at one point, he was in debt close to half a million dollars. But his pursuit and persistance paid off after a few years, and today you can find him in his lizard shop, drinking tea, BSing with customers and old friends, and in essence, doing what he loves doing every day of his life (kind of literally, since his shop is closed for only one day a year!).

(Another random fact is that Uncle Oscar used to go to my old church and knows a lot of the aunties and uncles I have in Seattle. Crazy small world.)

The shop in Mong Kok.

Normally, I only charm the ladies...

So back to the present. Uncle Oscar always insists on picking me up from and taking me to the airport, so after I arrived at the airport, he picked me and took me directly to get dinner. We went to one of his favorite spots in Mong Kok that specializes in small, simple Cantonese dishes - all of which were really good. You will never go wrong with one of Uncle Oscar's recommendations - the man knows how to eat.

Hot plate beef with scallions and onions.

Chinese broccoli with ground pork.

The next day, I met up with him and my godbrother Bernard for some shabu shabu (hot pot). He invited me, as well as my friend Carolyn and her aunts (more on them in my next post). The shabu shabu included fatty beef, thin sliced grouper, clams, dumplings, veggies, and live shrimp on a stick (cruel, but tasty). The atmosphere was pretty chaotic: a bunch of tables squished together so closely that everyone was literally back to back with the next table, people screaming for more meats, and soup steam filling the room. It felt like a hot pot sauna with 100 of your closest (by proximity only) acquaintances. Needless to say, I loved it.

Mmmmm, hot pot sauna...

Live shrimp skewer with my god brother Bernard.

Over the next couple of nights, both Uncle Oscar and Bernard proceeded to spoil me with sushi, Chiu Chow style food, and Shanghainese style food. As I've mentioned before, eating with locals definitely expands your horizons to amazing (and stinky!) foods you'd never think of eating.

Hamachi.

Chiu Chow style goose.

Chiu Chow style fried fish.

The infamous stinky tofu!

My time in Hong Kong is always enjoyable because the city is so lively and the food is so delicious and readily available. But above all, I love spending time with Uncle Oscar (as well as other family), hearing his stories, and hopefully learning how to be as humbly gracious with the people in my life as he is with me.

Myeong Dong, Insadong, and Chasing Old Ladies up a Mountain!

Another friend I was lucky enough to hang out with in Seoul is the lovely Ms. Grace Kwon. She was back visiting family and luckily our dates coincided, so I was lucky enough to have her show me around Seoul as well.

I met up with Grace at Myeong Dong, which is a cool night market area (really reminded me of HK and Taiwan). We wandered a bit soaking in the atmosphere as well as looking for dinner. There were so many choices to eat, both in restaurants and on the street, but we finally settled on a restaurant that specialized in chicken. We ordered a dish that was kind of like a spicy chicken stir fry, which was cooked at our table. Once we were finished with half of the stir fry, our waitress mixed in some rice, turning it into a spicy chicken fried rice - pretty tasty stuff!

Hanging out in Myeong Dong.

Korean-style chicken fried rice.

Before I saw Grace next, I took a visit to an area called Insadong known for their street market and art scene. I had a great time walking up and down the street market, seeing vendors selling trinkets and food (one amazing sight was a vendor selling honey candy, which they stretched and pulled a thousand times until it became thin strands of white, as thin as hair). For lunch, I stopped by a place that sold soup dumplings, which was really delicious and the broth had a clean, light taste. (As another aside, one thing I really like about restaurants in Korea is that each one specializes in one or two things and only sells those items, which means whatever they cook is generally really tasty).

Street art in Insadong.

Soup dumplings - one of four menu items.

The next day, Grace and I decided we had enough of walking on comfortable, flat ground, so we decided to take a hike up Mt. Bukhansan. The hike was only about five miles total, but was pretty tough since it was so vertical. But the trek was worth it because the views were so gorgeous and it was nice just to sit and soak in Korea from 800 meters up. (On a side note, one thing Grace and I noticed was that there were so many middle and old aged hikers! It was definitely not an easy hike, but all of these older folks (many who were smokers, by the way) looked really comfortable doing it. Pretty amazing considering Grace and I could barely walk the day after.)

The trek begins! Notice she's still smiling...

Now, maybe more of a sweaty grimace.

Gorgeous views and we're not even to the top.

The top!

After our hike (and not eating for a long time since we weren't smart enough to pack snacks), we found a delicious little place at the base of the mountain that served smoked duck and pork. But hold on, there's more! They brought out the smoked meat, and proceeded to grill it for us to get additional crispy texture. Really, really tasty meal, that ofcourse came with a million side dishes, salad, soup, and Korean pancake. It was a great pick me up to a day where I was beat up and down a mountain by little, old ladies...and it was also really nice hanging out with Grace :).

Our well deserved meal.

Exploring Seoul with Ed and Eugene

One thing I learned about Seoul is that it's HUGE! There are so many unique and interesting areas to see that it's an impossible mission without some help. Luckily for me, I was able to connect with Ed and Eugene, two of my cousin Gloria's friends who were kind enough to show me around the city.

Eugene and Ed are in Seoul teaching english for the year and were kind enough to take a day to show me around a few popular spots in Seoul. We started off in Itaewon which is a popular area for a lot of foreigners since there's a lot of shopping and a wide variety of food. Just my luck, the day I went was one of the rainiest days of the past five years, so I spent most of the afternoon in a cafe blogging and watching Louis CK on youtube. When the rain let up slightly, I wandered out to meet Ed and Eugene and they took me to eat at an amazing gyro (sorry no pictures, I was too hungry to stop stuffing my face). These were slightly different than the Gyrocery variety in that had a much thinner type of pita (almost like a soft taco) and a few different ingredients.

 The rainy view from a cafe in Itaewon.

After getting a quick bite, we proceeded to the City Hall area to meet up with a couple of their friends, Aamer and Prasad, who were taking a break from grad school to travel. We wanted to at least pretend to learn something on our trip so went to a museum dedicated to the Korean General Yi Sun-shin.

I at least learned how to write my name.

After drying off learning a lot, we decided to get some really authentic Korean food...pizza! We went to a place popular place in Korea called Mister Pizza and in order to still get that Korean feel, we ordered the bulgogi pizza which wasn't half bad.

After dinner, we decided to head to Sinsa, which is known for some pretty cool bars and late night eats. We started off with some Japanese food and sake, then headed to a really intresting place that serves only fish cake on skewers. You sit at a rectangular table with fish cake skewers sitting in hot broth in the middle of the table. You just take as you like and add up the skewers at the end to determine what you owe. Definitely a new and fun experience.

Japanese thin sliced beef. 

Eugene, Aamer, and Ed.

The fish cake skewer place in Sinsa.

We ended that night, like I end most of my nights...dancing at a techno club. Those that know me know that this isn't really my scene. But those that really know me know that the dance floor is my second home. I learned so much in the afternoon at the museum that I decided to do some teaching on the dance floor. And by teaching, I mean gyrating awkwardly for a few hours while lasers and confetti hearts filled the air. Mission accomplished.

Meeting the Family...and the Waffle King!

One of the main reasons I came out to Korea was to meet some members of my family (on my mom's side) for the first time. I've spent the last few years traveling to Hong Kong, Shanghai and Singapore to visit family, and Korea was the last destination on my list. I don't speak any Korean (other than food), and most of my family doesn't speak English, so was interested to see how my interactions would be. Luckily for me, my Uncle Terry speaks very fluent English, so he was able to translate (as well as ask me if I'm getting married anytime soon, naturally :)).

Along with my Uncle Terry, I met his wife and two kids, as well as his brother, sister, and mother (my great aunt in law). Even though my trip was relatively short notice and I didn't get to spend a lot of time with everyone, they welcomed me very warmly and with open arms. (On a side note, my family's honesty is second to none. One of the first things my great aunt told me was that my brother was more handsome than I was :P).

BBQing with the family.

Mini-reunion at my aunt's house.

I love traveling by myself and exploring new places, but the great thing about having family take me around is that I get to eat amazing local dishes, that I'd never even know to order. Here is a smattering of the dishes I've eaten with my family:

BBQ duck on a spit! Amazing.

The crispy end result.

Spicy duck soup.

Grilled mackerel and kim-chi soup.

Now to answer the 20 million dollar question: who's the Waffle King? When my Uncle Terry picked me up from the airport, he said he wanted to take me to his office to see what he did. He mentioned that he started a franchising business of coffee shops with (wait for it...) waffles! The coffee shops are called Waffle Kings, and since my uncle started this company, that would make him the Waffle King...King. He took me to a one of the local Waffle Kings and let me sample some of the delicious waffles and I was not disappointed.

The inner workings of a Waffle King.

Mmmmmmm..

Even though this was the first time meeting my family, and it was only for a short time, my family (like the rest of the family I've met over the past few years) was so generous with their time in taking me around and feeding me - something I'm more grateful for than a blog can express. If there's anything I've learned over the past few years, it's that I'm enormously blessed to have the loving family that I have - both at home and abroad.

Now off to find a wife so my family can start asking me new questions!

Kim's Guest House: My Home Away from Home

As I mentioned in my previous post, I'm staying at a guest house in Hapjeong called Kim's Guest House. My friend Tina recommended it and I'm really glad she did because it's been an amazing experience. I sleep in a room with four bunk beds totaling eight people - cozy to say the least. The first night took some getting used to as people come in and out of the room at all hours, but have since gotten used to it and now I sleep like a baby.

One half of my eight person room. Top Bunk!

The lounge/computer room.

The kitchen. Free toast!

The great thing about staying at Kim's is the people I've gotten to meet. My first night I met a guy from Seattle...from my high school! He graduated a few years after I did, so I didn't know him, but what a small world. I've also met very cool people from Singapore, Japan, Thailand, Malaysia, France, and Switzerland - some of which I hope to see again as I continue backpacking. My house mates are here for reasons that span from grad school research to vacation to writing rock & roll music, so it's been really fun hearing everyone's stories.

Lastly, and bestly, what makes Kim's Guest House so awesome is the appropriately named Sunny, who, along with her brother, runs the guest house. She's so friendly and full of energy and makes us all feel at home. She's run the guest house for 10 years now and it has become so well known for being a great haven for backpackers that it's featured in Seoul's Lonely Planet. She's originally from Seoul, but has learned English and Japanese by conversing with backpackers throughout the years (she refers to it as the "Kim's Guest House Language School"). She's definitely helped me start my three month trip with a smile.

At dinner with Game and Sunny. Eating BBQ chicken, or as they call it in Korea, BBQ chicken (Sunny gets it).

I'm not a big Yelp reviewer type, but if you're ever looking for a great (and cheap!) place to stay in Seoul and want to meet cool people from around the world, I definitely recommend Kim's Guest House!